Allison Wildman stoops to photograph tiny Mill Ends Park in Portland, Ore., listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Allison Wildman stoops to photograph tiny Mill Ends Park in Portland, Ore., listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Photo: Don Ryan, Associated Press

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Britons are using an upcoming event at Prince's Park in Staffordshire as an excuse to question the Oregon claim.

Britons are using an upcoming event at Prince's Park in Staffordshire as an excuse to question the Oregon claim.

Photo: Rui Vieira, Associated Press

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Fake park feud revives leprechaun tale

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Portland, Ore. --

The British and the Americans are quarreling - albeit with tongues in cheek - over territory again, this time over who has the world's smallest park.

One, in Portland, is essentially a concrete planter, 2 feet in diameter, with soil and some vegetation. The Guinness Book of World Records says it's the smallest.

The other is 5,000 miles away in England. They don't claim to have a physically smaller park - theirs is 15 feet by 30 feet. But they dispute whether Portland's is a park at all.

What started as a stunt to drum up publicity for a charity run at the park in Britain sparked some cross-pond banter. One online commenter wrote: "If that's a park then my window box should take the title."

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Someone who said they were from Portland replied: "Yes, but our park has leprechauns. Does yours?"

Leprechauns? Yes, that's right. The faux feud has helped unearth the curious story of a Portland newspaper columnist's quest to get the park declared the smallest and his claim that it was home to leprechauns.

The tale stretches back to 1946, when newspaperman Dick Fagan returned from World War II. From his office at the Oregon Journal newspaper, he could see a hole in the street where a light post was supposed to be erected. Fagan got tired of looking at the hole and planted flowers in it.

An Irishman with a vivid imagination, Fagan wrote about the park in his columns, spinning tales about leprechauns who lived there. Somehow, Guinness proclaimed Mill Ends Park the world's smallest park in 1971.

Jamie Panas, the record-keepers spokeswoman, said the entry in the Guinness database reads, in part: "It was designated as a city park on 17 March 1948 at the behest of the city journalist Dick Fagan (USA) for snail races and as a colony for leprechauns. "

Portland's littlest park is now drawing big headlines. It started with a British sports management company promoting the "world's shortest fun run," around Prince's Park in Burntwood.

Promoters Paul Griffin and Kevin Wilson also launched a faux challenge to Portland's claim - figuring that would generate publicity for the charity race.

Wilson says he has no intention of asking Guinness to take away Portland's title. There is talk, however, of a North Atlantic alliance - a sister-park relationship.